“Picture a point, then place” by Carol D. Guerrero-Murphy

the point on a line, imagine it moving along the line.
Let the point be my mother, A, and the line be a hall in an airport.
Let the point traverse the line, the line AB where B
is the future, a departure gate, too far away to see
though you may name it gate 67B.
Let the line bisect a circle that is the whirl
of departures and arrivals, people and machines, and air currents,
and let her be the point in the center. Then let her move
as a firefly moves, and let her be the light as a firefly is light, on, off, erratic,
erotic, let her be the point of light in the whirl.

Carol Guerrero-Murphy's book Table Walking at Nighthawk (Ghost Road Press 2007) was awarded a WILLA for poetry (Finalist). She is a professor of English and creative writing at Adams State University in Alamosa, Colorado. She earned her doctorate at Denver University in 1989. Most recently her work has been published in Quarterly West and Pilgrimage. She has been a teacher for students at every level, from Pre-K to senior, and enjoys nothing more than igniting writers with new ideas and strategies, and igniting new writers.